Word spread quickly at practice. The football players stood up for a moment, looked around at each other and broke out into nervous laughter. That didn't happen, they muttered. That simply couldn't happen. No way. Not here. Not in this country. The news was so catastrophic, so horrific and so far beyond the realm of anything they had ever had to process that the football players laughed it off as a classless practical joke.

And then, after practice, the coaches gathered the Los Angeles Rams together and told them, once again, that the country's worst fears had been realized: President Kennedy had been assassinated. It was November 22, 1963.

Almost 38 years later, the exact same scenario played out on practice fields across the country after news spread about the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. That didn't happen, players muttered. That simply couldn't happen. No way. Not here. Not in this country.

In Charlotte, where the Carolina Panthers practice in the shadow of the downtown skyline, at one point or another this week most players, coaches and visitors glanced up toward the nearby skyscrapers. They were probably trying to imagine, or somehow put into context, the devastation in New York.

"When the news about JFK came out, originally we all just said, 'This has to be a joke, because this could never happen in place like America,' " says 61-year-old former Rams quarterback Roman Gabriel, who is now the Panthers' radio color man. "And then, when we found out that President Kennedy had been shot we were all just immediately drained of all of our emotion and enthusiasm. We stood there as if none of us knew what to do."

What the NFL did, though, just two short days after JFK was killed, was play its games. It was a decision that haunted former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and perhaps all of those who participated. It was a decision that, I'm sure, weighed heavily on current commish Paul Tagliabue as he agonized over what to do this week.

But the NFL absolutely made the right decision to cancel the games this weekend. Some people say we should show the terrorists that took down the World Trade Center that they have not disrupted our lives by gathering to watch some silly sporting event. I hear these arguments and, to me, they sound tinged with the natural and understandable human tendency of denial. But the sad truth is the terrorists have devastated us, they have disrupted us, they have scared us and rocked us all to our core. During one Panthers practice, when an ambulance raced by with its sirens blaring, you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

And although escaping for a few hours this weekend is tempting, I'm afraid it's not that easy. What we really need to do is pause for a while, focus on our grief and, well, admit we hurt and take the time to heal and deal with all of this.

Because in the days to come, as the somber family members of the victims shuffle helplessly through the streets of NYC with pictures of their lost loved ones, and as body bags begin to pour out of the rubble at a pace too rapid to track or comprehend, this is going to get worse before it begins to get better.

But it will get better. The games will resume. The cheering, the smiles and the excitement will eventually resume. I promise. The most powerful and comforting human emotion is hope. But if you need an escape this weekend, get one at a blood bank or by helping out at a food drive or by volunteering at the Red Cross. Now is not the time for football. If you can't see that today, understand that when you reflect back on this in six months it will be perfectly clear.

Now is the time for mourning and reflection and prayer and support. Not game plans, not cheerleaders, not football. Trust me, when the NFL kicks off next Sunday we will still be showing the world, and more importantly ourselves, that we are 1,000 times stronger than anyone ever thought.

But for those of you still wondering whether or not the NFL should have played this weekend, consider the lessons learned from the only other comparably dark moment in American history. "This is a time," says Gabriel, "to put sports on the back burner for a while."

The experience in 1963 was so numbing for Gabriel, who played 15 years in the NFL (1962-1977) with the Rams and Philadelphia Eagles and led the league with 3,219 yards passing in 1973, that at first he had trouble remembering who the Rams played, how many fans were there or how he performed in the wake of the JFK assassination. "That gives you an idea where my mind was," says Gabriel. "I can tell you a lot about the games I started. But apparently that day, my mind was somewhere else." (The Rams defeated the Colts, 17-16, on Nov. 24, 1963 at the Los Angeles Coliseum.) Fast forward to this week, compound those feelings by 10,000 and you can begin to imagine what it would have been like for NFL players to try and take the field Sunday.

"It affects you immensely to the point where you cannot concentrate -- your emotions are completely drained," says Gabriel. "So I'm glad the NFL did what they did; it's a tremendous decision. I agree 100 percent with what they have done. At this point, with what has happened, it's pretty clear what the reaction should be."

Gabriel then paused for a moment before echoing the sentiment of what must now be a unified sports nation.

"Now is not the time for sports," he said.

Now is the time for hope.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail flemfile@aol.com.